I'd consider it a personal favor if y'all filled this out and sent it, then spread it far and wide; this proposed ban is illegal, yet they're going to do it anyway unless word gets out. They're banning this because it's cheap, available, and is a popular training round for the most common and widely owned rifle on the North American continent, not because it is armor piercing, which it is legally and functionally not (US military removed it from service because it was not good at it in any way, shape, or form). This ban is solely to keep people from being able to afford to exercise their rights

Here in the UK, we're WAY past banning M855. The government banned entire classes of firearm (handguns and automatics) and regulated the hell out of others - shotguns can't carry more than 3 shells, semi-auto's are banned with exception for .22 cal, no collapsible stocks, etc. To get a license in the first place you need to give justifications for gun ownership (self-defense NOT considered a legitimate reason), you need to live in a low crime area (ironic), you need to be a member of a government approved gun club for more than 6 months, you need to have a regulation approved gun safe which needs to be bolted to the wall of cemented to the floor, you need to provide professional references, you need to be interviewed by local police, etc, etc. And even if you jump through all the hoops and fill out all the paperwork, your application for gun ownership can be rejected anyway - you're not owed an explanation. And IF you get a firearm license you're only allowed 1 gun. You can get more 'slots' put on your license, but again, you have to justify your need to own another (and will receive great resistance). Same deal with ammo - you're tightly restricted to how much you can purchase at one time and store. You can get the number on your license changed, but again, expect great resistance - the assumption is that you shouldn't be granted it and you have to persuade the authorities otherwise. Oh, ya want a suppressor for your gun do ya? Nope. Not without another application in which you have to beg for something you should be free purchase. I could go on for ages - the rules never end.

Hell, send all three variations of the letter; that is what I am doing, and I'll be going down the list of Houston-area zip codes

I mean, I don't even shoot ARs anymore (mine sits in a safe, as I have an FAL that is more fun and not much more expensive to run) or buy that ammo, but this ban is bullshit and legally has no ground to stand on

The ATF backed down because pretty much everyone got mad, and now there is even a federal judge trying to strike down the (illegally passed, as the vote on it declared it would not be put into law and unconstitutional) Hughes Amendment, and several lawmakers are trying to revoke the ATF's authority to regulate ammo because they keep trying to ban all of it since they can't ban the guns

Help! An amendment to the EU firearms directive is being snuck through to ban semi-automatics among other things (in the name of stopping terrorism. Yeah right). My rebuttal as follows...

1) The proposal contains no reference to any study/data sources with regard to its various claims. We have a saying in academia that claims made without evidence can be refuted without evidence. This alone is enough to reject the proposal, but I'll continue for the sake of completing my rebuttal.

2) The proposal is presented without any impact assessment. This fact is openly admitted in the document, but justified in light on the (claimed) urgency of the issue. How convenient that they don't have time to assess the probable outcome. To state the obvious, terrorists organisations don't use legal methods of obtaining firearms. The black market is by definition beyond the jurisdiction of legislation, thus the proposed amendments have no capacity to curb terrorism. The recent Paris shootings evidence this very point, in which fully-automatic AK-47s were obtained by the terrorists despite being banned.

3) The proposal is couched in vague language ("some", "could", "possibly", "may", etc.). In particular I'd like to draw attention to the ban of "semi-automatic firearms for civilian use which resemble weapons with automatic mechanisms". Resemble? According to whose eyes? This is too subjective to take seriously as a standard. It also conflates form with function. Appearance has nothing to do with a weapon's mechanical or ballistic properties. Further, the banning of firearms based on cosmetic features has already been tried in the US (Federal Assault Weapons Ban, 1994). A subsequent study by the National Research Council (2004) concluded (unsurprisingly) that the ban failed to impact firearm related violence.

4) The proposal sets unattainable standards. For example, "are designed for life-saving, animal slaughter or harpoon fishing or for industrial or technical purposes provided that they can be used for the stated purpose only". The use of an object exclusively for its intended purpose can not be guaranteed by any law, nor design feature. This simply isn't possible. Further, "The Commission shall adopt deactivation standards and techniques to ensure that deactivated firearms are rendered irreversibly inoperable". Again, this isn't possible. Anything one gunsmith can do, another gunsmith can undo.

5) The proposal makes reference to the adoption of a medical test without specifying the nature of the test, its administration or its relationship to terrorism. This ties into the first point I made about lacking evidence but goes further in that literally no justification for the test is put forward, hypothetical or otherwise.

Although I believe in the U.S. Constitution, the 2nd Amendment is vague. It says, ": "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

So what does this actually mean?

Does it mean (as I think it does) that the citizenry must have to have access to firearms to support a militia or is this an unconditional right to bear firearms?

Keep in mind that when the founding fathers wrote this Constitutional Amendment, the United States had a very small standing army that was incapable of defending our nation's borders. The regulars were assisted by local militias.

It should also be noted that most Americans at this time were farmers and many farmers supplemented their pantries by hunting.

By way of further historical context, it should also be understood that there really wan't much difference between civilian firearms (flintlock muskets) and military ones. If anything, the average civilian weapon was probably better constructed than the cheap ones provided by a military contractor.

If we fast forward weapons technology to the 21st century, there's a huge difference between the capabilities of civilian and military firearms. Weapons shoot a lot faster, have higher velocities, and are ore accurate than the old flintlocks.

Basically the citizenship is an irregular milita, and is to be well regulated (read: in good working order) in that no body shall be legally able to restrict them from maintaining at least some kind of readiness (so arms, ammo, and training should be freely available). The purpose of this milita is to defend the country, be it from internal (gangs, domestic terrorists, a tyrannical government, etc) and external threats (invaders), and the intention is that they be on par with regular military in training and armament if they desired to do so. Gun laws in the US initially existed to keep free African Americans from being well armed, but this eventually extended to the poor, then "everyone who doesn't agree with the government", and now "everyone who isn't the government"

The 2nd isn't for hunting, or shooting sports, or home defense; it is to make the government think twice about committing acts of tyranny, for fear of getting dragged out in the streets by the American people and shot

SandWshooter wrote:Basically the citizenship is an irregular milita, and is to be well regulated (read: in good working order) in that no body shall be legally able to restrict them from maintaining at least some kind of readiness (so arms, ammo, and training should be freely available).

Point taken ... but at the time this amendment was written, our nation's small standing military was supported (particularly within frontier areas) by a militia.

We're now in the 21st century. The few militia groups that still exist are often seen as crackpots ... either racist (white supremacists) or survivalists.

I would submit that our state militias were replaced in 1903 with the formation of the National Guard. Since the National Guard maintains its own armory, do civilians really need access to military quality firearms like assault rifles?

It's just a thought.

Although I do not believe in owning firearms myself, anyone who tries to break into my home will get a cleaver through his or her skull. Since I'm a chef, instead of owning firearms, I have an extensive knife collection. I even have a modest collection of swords and daggers along with shields, helmets, and armor from around the world.

Informal militia still exists, cannot be replaced; organized militias are only seen as weird because the ATF and such agencies tend to send undercover instigators to stir up trouble. Most serious militias are mostly concerned with disaster relief and keeping their locality safe during emergencies (maintain law and order, protect against looters, etc)

The entire point of civilians having access to arms is to prevent invasion AND (most importantly) make it easier to overthrow a tyrannical government; if you don't realize, the National Guard is under the control of the US military, which is part of the US government, the government being who would be oppressing the citizenry in a situation in which revolt would be necessary

I hope you are familiar with the saying that the loser of a knife fight dies at the scene whilst the winner dies in the hospital